Question

How reliable are records cited as archive.org/stream/visitationof ..., how were they compiled please?

Answer 1

I am guessing that you are referring to a book on the Visitations of the counties of England done by the Heralds to map out the ancestry of families with armorial bearings. The books span multiple years and the length and breathe of the country. I have found most to be correct, but its impossible to weigh in on your question without knowing which book/family you are researching.

Overall, I have found the Visitations to be very helpful.

Comments

Thanks for your answer. I just wondered whether, when these documents are cited as the only source material, whether Wikitree is happy with that or whether the profiles should be marked as 'unsourced'. I presume these Heralds rushed about the country a long time ago, so the 'trees' are contemporaneous with at least the youngest people on the trees (if you see what I mean)

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There was large variability in how the visitations were conducted. For at least some, the Sheriff was tasked with advising, and therefore selecting, those who were required to present themselves. This leant itself to local political influences.

The books themselves are compilations from the original manuscript(s), and they will have an extensive introduction discussing these sort of issues, and will often draw on other documentation. If you ever need to use the genealogies from a Visitation you must read the introduction to get a full understanding.

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I think they are a useful starting off point for further research. You are right in that the provider of the information is likely the youngest person in the tree. How well did they remember  their ancestors? The trees are unsourced, so you need to take their information and confirm it else where.

I think they are valid sources, so I wouldn't mark a profile as unsourced if this was the only one listed.

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Thank you, your answer was really interesting and helpful.  Such a lot to learn!!

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Brilliant, thank you Jeanie.  It's a pity we don't have a semi-sourced category (only joking).  Your answers have been really helpful and interesting.

Answer 2

I thought archive.org was a wayback machine for reaching disused internet sites.

Comments

Linda, archive.org also has a huge library of digitized and searchable books which are out of copyright, including hundreds, if not thousands, of genealogy books.

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Archive.org has a wayback machine, but it is a digital library.

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Useful to know.

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Thanks Linda.  Your answer threw up some more interesting answers which are useful to know.

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I love the Archive.org site!

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Agree with M!  I particularly like to look at the actual item because I can word-search it.  This is great when researching Smiths.

https://archive.org/stream/cu31924029771726#page/n101/mode/2up/search/Josiah

The search field on the item details page searches the digital library, not just the open book.  

https://archive.org/details/cu31924029771726 

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Hey, this is some more interesting and useful stuff, which I will try to remember!

Answer 3

Hi Anonymous!  Thank you for joining our one world family tree. 

For a lot of families, the Visitations are the only "records" available for the early family line.  I consider them accurate until proven otherwise.

Also, a Source on WikiTree includes, but is not limited to, primary, secondary, and tertiary sources.  A Source on WikiTree is anywhere the profile author found the information.  The index says:

A source is the identification of where you obtained information.

Sources are critically important for genealogy. Some even say that genealogy without sources is mythology.^[1]

You must include your sources when you put information on WikiTree. It's in our Honor Code.

I only mark a profile as Unsourced if it really has no sources. I don't think we should try to judge the accuracy of a source when applying the Unsourced tag, IMHO.  Rather, we should be checking to see if there are any sources at all.  

Comments

Yes, I have now come to the conclusion that citing these records is absolutely OK.  I began to wonder when messages started to appear that myheritage records weren't up to Wikitree's standard, and then again other people say they don't trust ancestry.com because they have records compiled from members.  But that's a whole other ball game I suppose.  It all becomes as clear as mud as they say. Thanks for your erudite thoughts by the way, your 'humble opinion' is greatly appreciated.

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Ancestry.com is OK if it's referring to some database of records, but 95% of Ancestry trees are worthless. Same goes for most compiled genealogies anywhere. As far as I'm concerned, if the source is a tree or compiled genealogy that doesn't have sources, it's unsourced. A lot of people try to get around the source requirement that way, and it doesn't wash with me. The worst thing is when they cite personal knowledge when they mean personal knowledge of a record. You might as well say it came to you in a dream.

Answer 4

Those are scans of actual books. Visitation collections vary in quality but if you read the text of the book, they usually tell you where a particular tree came from. In the case of actual visitations, what they did was have a herald go around to various notable people and ask them about their family, so they're extremely reliable for people living at the time of the visitation. As is usual with family traditions, the quality may deteriorate as the informant goes to earlier generations. In many cases, the heralds will note corroborating information. Hereditary status was taken pretty seriously by the heralds, so I would consider the reliability as high as I would for any contemporary self reported source like a census.

Comments

I actually saw one 17th century visitation where someone told the herald that their brother was a "lunatic", so I get the impression that people didn't hold stuff back much. I've had opportunities to check dozens of them against other records, and I've never found one discrepancy.

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Brilliant, thanks

Answer 5

Sometimes the informant would tell the herald what he remembered, but memories were faulty. Sometimes he might have a pedigree written out on a fancy scroll, but the process of producing those things wasn't too scrupulous.  Available data would be used, but could be misinterpreted.  Then blemishes would be removed, gaps filled, extensions grafted on.

Sometimes the herald went prepared with a pedigree drafted from previous information, intending only to update it.  Those trees contained errors as well.

At the end of all that, there might be two or three copies of the report, not identical.  Further copies would be made.  Copies went into circulation, and people made additions and alterations.  The copy at the College - if there was one - wasn't immune.  The heralds would doctor their records to supply ancestries for the newly-ennobled nouveau-riche.

Sometimes the editors of the books complicate things by making their own combinations from different sources.  They often add extra pedigrees that didn't come from visitations at all.

So as with all "primary" sources you have to use them judiciously, bearing in mind the ways that errors creep in, and the fact that people don't always want the truth recorded in the first place.